


Smudged-Up Glass

by Salmon_Pink



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Community: comment_fic, Community: ladiesbingo, F/F, Semi-Public Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 07:54:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6275992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmon_Pink/pseuds/Salmon_Pink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some nights, Barbara needs to be somebody else. Because being herself is too hard, because she doesn't know who that person is supposed to <i>be</i>. Liza doesn't know who she's supposed to be either, so for one night they stumble together in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smudged-Up Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Contains infidelity. Written for [Ladies Bingo](http://ladiesbingo.dreamwidth.org/), prompt "half-life", and for [Comment Fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com), [prompt](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/702765.html?thread=92823597#t92823597) "Barbara/Liza, don't let them tell you you're nothing, 'cause you'll change the world pretty girls".

It’s a shitty bar that maybe, once upon a time, actually had class. But now the wallpaper’s fading and the regulars, in their threadbare suits and dresses that haven’t been in style for over a decade, hunch over their drinks like the answers to their problems are drowning in the alcohol.

Barbara’s out of place here, her hair artfully styled, her make-up perfect. But it’s exactly where she needs to be. It’s one of those nights where she’s crawling out of her own skin, memories like shards of glass embedded in her heart. The woman she used to be, the woman she plans to be, the woman who’s still a mystery to her, all warring in her mind until she has to get _away_.

Jim understands. Well, Jim _says_ he understands, even as he looks at Barbara like she’s flawless, like she can do no wrong. 

That’s why she has to be alone on these nights, why she has to disappear in some seedy bar where there’s no chance she’ll run into someone she knows. Because she can’t let Jim see the cracks beneath her surface. Because she isn’t even sure how deep those cracks go.

There’s a smudged fingerprint on her glass that isn’t her own, countless rings from too many spilled drinks stained into the wood of the bar. These nights, these restless nights, they don’t happen so often now Jim’s in her life, but when they do usually a place like this is enough for her to hide in. 

Not tonight, though. Tonight Barbara feels _lost_ , and the faded wallpaper is just another kind of noise in her head.

Seven empty seats at the bar, but a woman chooses the one next to Barbara. She’s wearing fishnets, long legs crossing, her boot brushing Barbara’s stool. Her skirt is black and tight and short, her shirt shiny, her skin pale.

She’s got full lips, soft and pink, and Barbara strokes her thumb over her smudged-up glass and looks this stranger in the eye.

“Buy me a drink?” the woman asks. She speaks quietly, cautiously, but there’s no shyness in her eyes.

“You even old enough to drink?” Barbara replies, tilting her head and taking the woman in. Her eyeshadow is smoky, blue or maybe purple, it’s hard to tell in the dim light.

The woman doesn’t smile with her mouth or her eyes, but there’s something welcoming about her. “I’m Liza,” she says. “And I’m old enough for all _sorts_ of things.”

Liza may not smile, but Barbara _does_ , signalling the bartender over without breaking Liza’s gaze.

Barbara’s got a full and perfect life with Jim, she’s got a _future_. But there’s still this side of her, this wildness she never quite fucked away when you was younger, this restlessness that doesn’t leave her no matter how settled she thinks she is. It’s an echo of a different life, maybe, a half-life where she’s another person, where everything went wrong, where she never met Jim and never found contentment.

Jim doesn’t know what she does on these nights. He just says he understands, and that’s enough.

The shitty bar isn’t enough for Barbara to hide in, so she hides herself in Liza instead. They screw in the bathroom, Liza’s hands spread against the stall door, that tight skirt rucked around her waist. Barbara yanks Liza’s shirt open, presses her mouth to Liza’s shoulder, fingering her from behind until Liza’s pussy is dripping against her wrist.

Liza goes to her knees on the filthy bathroom floor, eats Barbara out, Barbara’s hand in her dark hair and her foot up on the toilet seat.

Barbara leaves after that, and Liza follows. On nights like these, Barbara usually likes to be alone, but Liza’s quiet and thoughtful and Barbara has a feeling that maybe they’re the same. Or maybe they’re just looking for the same thing.

They get fresh donuts from a bakery when it opens at four, eating on a bench under the streetlights. “Why are you here?” Barbara asks.

Liza shakes her head, staring out across the deserted road. “This city tears people up,” she says, voice faraway and husky. “But one day, maybe I’ll be something.”

Barbara laughs, kisses powdered sugar from Liza’s full lips. “You’re something alright.”

“What about you?” Liza’s looking at her like she already knows Barbara won’t answer, so Barbara takes her hand, guides her into an alley that smells like concrete and rot and _Gotham_. They fuck against the wall, Barbara’s thigh wedged between Liza’s legs, swallowing down every noise Liza makes, every gasp and mewl.

It’s sunrise when they part, and Barbara doesn’t ask for Liza’s number, doesn’t offer her own. She regrets it on the walk back to her apartment, but then she’s walking in the front door. Inhaling the familiar scents of home, listening to the sound of Jim in the bathroom brushing his teeth, and Barbara knows that even if she’d gotten Liza’s number, she’d delete it then and there.

The wildness and the restlessness feel sated. For now, at least, until the next time that half-life beckons.

Maybe she’ll see Liza again. Maybe by then Liza will be something.

Maybe by then Barbara will be _whole_.


End file.
